It's... The Shell Game!!!

Friday, November 6, 1998

Following the steps outlined in my conversation with
the neurosurgeon, I decided to get the shell game out of my way already.
Thus, I went back to the dental clinic and had them transfer me to dental
care.

In the waiting room, I briefly saw Dr. Haker
debriefing another patient. I said hello and mentioned that the tooth where
she had removed the filling was feeling much better now.

Since Dr. Küttner was busy, it fell
to Dr. Hennies to look at me and transfer me to "tooth maintenance".
Dr. Hennies is a friendly, somewhat shy man who strongly resembles Dr.
Green from the TV series "Emergency Room". He peeked at me through
his glasses and asked me whether I was all right. I wasn't; I was going through
another pain build-up.

It should be noted that the pain at this point is back to its original
levels from last year. I make a note of this because in the interval of
May to October, the pain had gradually receded. There were two reasons
for this: First, I was getting used to it and one tends to gradually
ignore constant irritations. Second, since the pain build-up was slower,
I could counteract it to some degree, relaxing the jaw, checking what I was
thinking and forcing myself to relax.

Now, the pain is back at its worst and the build-ups have become too
fast to counteract. In addition, I am having a hard time finding ways to relax
-- it's hard to think of something relaxing while your jaw feels as if electrical
current is burning through it. Sometimes, when a rush hits me,
I have to hold on to the nearest solid object because I fear I might faint.
Also, I am once again keeping myself from smashing my head against a wall
to replace my jaw ache with different pain.

Back to our story. Dr. Hennies wasn't too happy about me asking to
have the fillings removed from the teeth -- he looked at them briefly and
said that they were a bit on the bad side, but that this couldn't really
be the reason for my troubles.

Nonetheless, he agreed that the best procedure given my medical history
was one of elimination of possible causes for the pain to determine,
finally, what was causing this situation. I was as ready as I could ever be
for what I had previously called the "shell
game" -- the dentists would pull out the fillings from the teeth
in my upper left-hand jaw and look whether they would find something
beneath.

The dentist who took it unto herself to play the shell game was Ms.
Bock. She was friendly enough, yet she decided not only to open up tooth
25, but also number 24 which looked a bit suspicious. She had read my medical
history and was very kind.

She started with tooth number 25 and -- surprise -- there was caries underneath,
quite close to the nerve. Number 24 also had a minor problem, but nowhere
as bad as 25. After she closed the tooth again, she announced that it might
sting a bit because she had to put in a substance which causes the nerve
to develop a protective layer.

Dr. Hennies prescribed me some valium and I went back to work.

As I write this, it's Saturday 8 of November and the pain hasn't gotten
any better. As a matter of fact, the tooth on the upper left-hand corner
has begun to hurt again, but I could be imagining things.